Nigeria's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Nigeria's CO2 emissions in 2024 totalled around 149 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 69 megatonnes CO2 (46%), followed by gas at around 41 megatonnes CO2 (27%), other fossil sources at 23 megatonnes CO2 (16%), land-use at 13 megatonnes CO2 (9%), and coal at 3.0 megatonnes CO2 (2%). Over the ten years to 2024, all sources increased, led proportionally by land-use and coal. Emissions were dominated by oil and gas combustion.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were small at around 0.02 megatonnes CO2 in 1915, rising to roughly 2.2 megatonnes CO2 by 1958 before falling sharply through the 1960s. They remained low for decades, then increased after 2000. Coal peaked at about 3.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2023 and ended at around 3.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began near zero in 1915 and grew gradually to around 9 megatonnes CO2 by 1978. They then rose rapidly to nearly 38 megatonnes CO2 in 1984, before declining through the 1990s. Emissions increased again after 1998, peaking at roughly 83 megatonnes CO2 in 2021, and finished at around 69 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were negligible until around 1970. They rose steadily from about 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1970 to roughly 12 megatonnes CO2 in 1999, then accelerated further. Gas emissions reached their highest level, around 41 megatonnes CO2, in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions rose from around 1.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to more than 100 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1950s, then varied at high levels for several decades. They surged to a peak of roughly 236 megatonnes CO2 in 1994, before declining markedly. Land-use emissions ended at around 13 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero until the mid-1950s, then increased to around 52 megatonnes CO2 by 2000. They peaked at roughly 62 megatonnes CO2 in 1996 before declining overall, reaching a low of about 20 megatonnes CO2 in 2016. They ended at around 23 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Background
The chart shows a national breakdown by source of the yearly CO2 emissions from human activities and processes expressed in megatonnes. It is critical to know and track the sources of national CO2 emissions in order to understand their individual impacts on climate change.
The sources of human CO2 emissions are
- CO2 From Fossil Fuels and Industry: coal, oil, gas combustion, other fossil processes
- CO2 From Land-Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
Coal, oil and gas combustion
Fossil fuel CO2 emissions from the combustion of coal, oil and gas are emitted by processes in electricity generation, transport, industry, and the building sector. All processes can be linked to human activities. Examples include driving cars with combustion engines burning diesel or gas, or electric cars charged by electricity from a power plant that burns coal.
Other fossil processes
Fossil CO2 emissions from other processes include sources like cement manufacturing and production of chemicals and fertilizers. Cement also has an absorption factor highlighted in the absorption breakdown chart.
Land-use change
Human civilization emits CO2 by changing and managing its land. Those emissions come, for example, from deforestation, logging, forest degradation, harvest activities and shifting agriculture cultivation. Land-use change also absorbs considerable amounts of CO2, which is shown in the absorption breakdown chart. Land-use change emits more than it absorbs, so the net effect is still emissions, but less than for coal, oil and gas.
Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas EmissionsEarth System Science Data: GCP 2020 paper: Section 2.2 Land-use change; Section 2.1 Fossil fuel emissions
IPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1.1 Anthropogenic CO2 emissions
Units and Measures
CO2 emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.
Wikipedia: MegatonneWikipedia: Global warming potential
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National CO2 emissions data through 2024 is from the Global Carbon Project and covers fossil sources and land-use change.
The Key Insights paragraph was created using a large language model (LLM) in combination with our data, historic events, and a structured approach for best accuracy by separating the context generation from the interpretation and narrative.
Data Sources
Global Carbon Budget 2025 Global Carbon Budget
Update cycle: yearlyDelay: ~ 10 months after the end of the year. Current year values are estimated and published in November.Credits: Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Bakker, D. C. E., Hauck, J., Landschützer, P., Le Quéré, C., Li, H., Luijkx, I. T., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Schwingshackl, C., Sitch, S., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Aas, K., Alin, S. R., Anthoni, P., Barbero, L., Bates, N. R., Bellouin, N., Benoit-Cattin, A., Berghoff, C. F., Bernardello, R., Bopp, L., Brasika, I. B. M., Chamberlain, M. A., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Collier, N. O., Colligan, T. H., Cronin, M., Djeutchouang, L., Dou, X., Enright, M. P., Enyo, K., Erb, M., Evans, W., Feely, R. A., Feng, L., Ford, D. J., Foster, A., Fransner, F., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gkritzalis, T., Goncalves De Souza, J., Grassi, G., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Guenet, B., Gürses, Ö., Harrington, K., Harris, I., Heinke, J., Hurtt, G. C., Iida, Y., Ilyina, T., Ito, A., Jacobson, A. R., Jain, A. K., Jarníková, T., Jersild, A., Jiang, F., Jones, S. D., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Knauer, J., Kong, Y., Korsbakken, J. I., Koven, C., Kunimitsu, T., Lan, X., Liu, J., Liu, Z., Liu, Z., Lo Monaco, C., Ma, L., Marland, G., McGuire, P. C., McKinley, G. A., Melton, J., Monacci, N., Monier, E., Morgan, E. J., Munro, D. R., Müller, J. D., Nakaoka, S.-I., Nayagam, L. R., Niwa, Y., Nutzel, T., Olsen, A., Omar, A. M., Pan, N., Pandey, S., Pierrot, D., Qin, Z., Regnier, P. A. G., Rehder, G., Resplandy, L., Roobaert, A., Rosan, T. M., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Skjelvan, I., Smallman, T. L., Spada, V., Sreeush, M. G., Sun, Q., Sutton, A. J., Sweeney, C., Swingedouw, D., Séférian, R., Takao, S., Tatebe, H., Tian, H., Tian, X., Tilbrook, B., Tsujino, H., Tubiello, F., van Ooijen, E., van der Werf, G., van de Velde, S. J., Walker, A., Wanninkhof, R., Yang, X., Yuan, W., Yue, X., and Zeng, J.: Global Carbon Budget 2025, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-659, in review, 2025.